A principal rule for writers, and especially those who want to
describe their own sensations, is not to believe that their doing
so indicates they possess a special disposition of nature in this
respect. Others can perhaps do it just as well as you can. Only
they do not make a business of it, because it seems to them silly
to publicize such things.

Jeff and Matt, tonight, commenting on this blog: "it's like
pornography".

As I made my way home from Uptown on the 21 tonight at a quarter to
one, there was an extremely drunken man with a pimp hat and a pimp
stick impersonating Ja Rule (once he woke up out of his stupor, that
is). It was a pretty good impersonation. In fact, I'm not so sure
he wasn't Ja Rule. Though if he was I'm not sure what he was doing
getting off in the middle of nowhere on Lake at one in the morning,
much less riding metro transit in Minneapolis. Surely Murder, Inc. can afford at least a taxi.

Unlikely, that is, because psychologizing paper-thin characters never
really seems that profitable to me.

(Though I am reminded of something I heard somewhere once about Dickens,
which I will attribute to Tom, about the characters being nothing more than
a collection of nervous tics which are brought to life by vibrating at
high speed. Something like that might be said of the personas like Pusha T
and Malice - or plenty of MCs with flashier character traits and tics -
though I certainly wouldn't want to imply that they sound excited or
anything ("tics", "vibrating").)

Matos is right about
Clipse's attitude - the way they're so matter of fact, professional,
remorseless. That makes Pusha T's "wow" in Let's
Talk About It stand out. It's even a little bit surprising to me,
maybe: the lesbian sex he refers to is enough to disrupt the facade when
most everything else on the album is not. I'm not sure whether to take
this to say more about Pusha T (unlikely) or about the big careening
wobbling system of stuff that makes up gangsta rap (and by extension,
because of its audience, the whole of America oh yeah that's right
I said it thinking big tonight here yup).

And some comments on individual albums and singles (some of these
opinions have changed or developed already!):

1. Sonic Youth - Murray Street - 20 (DGC)
I asked a friend if he wanted to go see Sonic Youth. No, he said, they're
old. I put my headphones back on. I put my headphones back on a lot last
year. It was that kind of year.

4. Jay-Z - The Blueprint 2: The Gift and the Curse - 5 (Roc-A-Fella)
"A Dream" cuts "World Trade" from Biggie's sampled "Juicy" verse -- "time
to get paid / blow up like the" -- and it does it audibly and awkwardly.
So it's my favorite 9/11 song. I know everyone has emotions and shit, but
what I really want to hear is the stutter, the confused lapse of speech
and moment of silence that comes from knowing something fucked up has
happened, but not knowing what's ok to say and what's not ok. (Jay blows
it later on the title track, but that's not really a surprise.) [The
parenthetical was dropped - I think that was a good idea.]

7. No Doubt - Rock Steady - 10 (Interscope)
I'm glad teenagers have this to listen to. I wonder if the boys avoided
it as assiduously as my friends and I avoided the first No Doubt album.
Hopefully teenage boys are smarter now. (Oh, wait.)

2. Eminem - "Without Me" (Aftermath)
I heard two songs in 2002 where it seemed like everyone in the room knew all
the words: "Baby Got Back", at a party, and "Without Me", in a bar. I don't
think the same thing will be happening with Em at parties in 2012, but then
again, who cares?

3. No Doubt - "Hella Good" (Interscope)
I would like an 80s revival this way, please (see also: Cee-Lo).

5. Cee-Lo - "Gettin' Grown" (Arista)
I would like an 80s revival this way, please (see also: No Doubt).

6. Nappy Roots - "Po' Folks" (Atlantic)
Lazy in more than one sense of the word, but one of those senses makes up
for the other one.

7. LL Cool J - "Lollipop" (Def Jam)
I liked this but I really just put it on my list because it has that
Neptunes sound from the future on it (beeow beeow) and I want more records
with that sound on them. I want it everywhere. I am totally serious about
this.

8. Nelly feat. Kelly Rowland - "Dilemma" (Universal)
Usually I harbor some lingering resentment for songs that I come to like
when they annoy the hell out of me but won't stay out of my head, or off
my radio. This is too sweet to resent.

9. Clipse feat. Sean Paul, Bless & Kardinal Offishall - "Grindin'
(Selector Remix)" (Star Trak)
Will you understand what I mean if I just say that I think Pumalicesha-T is a
good MC but "he" doesn't seem very exciting to listen to? That's probably
part of the point, I know, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. The
two remixes on the album improve on "Grindin'" in this regard, but are
also unfortunately slightly more torturous. So on most days I choose
the Selector remix as a "happy" medium, because it has toasters and toasters
make me happy. (I'm not sure if I am supposed to be happy here, though.
I'm also not sure if I want to keep listening to this a lot, or if it
matters.) I hope Kardi's next album has more woozy, swoony multitracked
harmonies like the ones that start his verse here.

Another one (the play's middle-America run hit Minneapolis in January
2002, unfortunately long after it had first run in New York - but it
"made its impact" (the Voice criterion for record votes, despite year of
release) on me last year):

Reasons the Rude Mechs' stage adaptation of Lipstick Traces is a zillion
times better than the original book:

1. laughter = best possible litmus for understanding goofy
beliefs of various european weirdos

2. dramatic device of shit-there's-a-lot-of-confusion-here-let's-keep-going
way more punk than 500 page book from harvard university press

In the fall I asked each of my undergraduate students to list, along with
other stuff that was supposed to help me tell them apart, five records - all
time favorites, current favorites, albums, songs, whatever. Of about sixty
students (only two of whom said "I don't really listen to music"), five
mentioned a Weezer album. Five. There were three blue albums, one
Pinkerton,
and one green album (and, happily, no Maladroits). This means something,
but what exactly is unclear to me.